Obama sheds a tear at final campaign rally

11/5/12 11:58 PM EST

DES MOINES, Iowa – At what he billed as the last campaign event of his political career, President Obama dove into nostalgia here, tying together stories of his early 2008 campaign with a future he hopes includes a second four years in the White House.

Obama, appearing on stage with his wife for the first time since the day after the Democratic National Convention, spoke from a lectern just yards from his original Iowa campaign headquarters.

He even told the unabridged version of the origin of his ubiquitous “fired up, ready to go” chant that originated at a small meeting in Greenwood, S.C., in 2008. The story, which Obama told at length at the last rally of his 2008 campaign, has become a staple of Obama 2012 events, but only on video.

This night was a return to the optimistic and idealistic Obama, who went through a 29-minute speech without a single mention of or allusion to GOP rival Mitt Romney. The moment moved him to tears, a few of which descended from his left eye.

And if Obama was a man reminiscing, he was also mindful of the newly exclamatory campaign slogan that has marked his campaign this summer. For a night, forward meant for just one more day until the election returns in a few key battleground states are known.

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, Iowa, tomorrow from the granite of New Hampshire to the Rockies of Colorado, from the coastlines of Florida to Virginia’s rolling hills, from the valleys of Ohio to these Iowa fields we will keep America moving forward,” he said.

“I’ve come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,” he said. “I came back to ask you to help us finish what we started. Because this is where our movement for change began, right here. Right here. Right behind these bleachers is the building that was home to our Iowa headquarters in 2008.”

To a crowd of 20,000, he unearthed the “Yes, we can” theme from four years ago and spoke of the idealistic young people who powered his first run for president.

“This is where some of the first young people joined our campaign, set up shop,” he said. “Going to work for little pay and less sleep because they believed the people throughout the country could change it. This was where so many of you who shared that belief came to help.”

It was a markedly different delivery for a candidate who has been giving the same speech at every stop since returning to the campaign trail since Hurricane Sandy interrupted the presidential campaign. It was an acknowledgement from Obama that this is the end of his life stumping for office, a point driven home by Michelle Obama when she introduced him.

“This is the final event of my husband’s final campaign,” she said. “So this is the last time that he and I will be on stage together at a campaign rally. And that’s why we wanted to come here to Iowa tonight.

Like her husband, the first lady looked forward to Tuesday and beyond.

“Tomorrow, all across this state all across this country, we will line up and vote in libraries, in community centers, in school gyms, we’re going to knock on doors until our fingers are numb, we’re going to make calls until our voices are hoarse” – her husband’s already well past that stage – “and we won’t stop until every voice and every last vote is counted,” she said. “And we will do it, we will do it because while we have come so far we know that there is so much more to do.”

From here the Obamas will fly to Chicago, where they will spend the next two nights in their home on the city’s South Side. They go there hoping they don’t return there full time for a`while.